‘I just kept my head down’ as club raided (From Bournemouth Echo)

‘I just kept my head down’ as club raided

7:00am Friday 3rd July 2009 in

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A PUB resident, accused of conspiring to rob a Bournemouth snooker club, has spoken of his terror after getting caught up in the early morning armed raid.

Giving evidence at Bourne-mouth Crown Court yesterday, Alex Calderwood, 47, said: “It was very frightening because I was there as a customer. I just kept my head down.”

Father-of-one Calderwood, who was living in Deacons public house at the time, and pub manager William Grogan, 48, deny conspiring to rob the Academy Snooker Club in Christchurch Road, Boscombe, on October 22 last year.

Belfast-born Calderwood told jurors how he had been dividing his time between Bournemouth, Manchester and Northern Ireland.

He said he had known Grogan for most of his life but only met Martin Willis, 46, and Martin Trent, 41, last summer.

Willis and Trent, who also used to live at Deacons, have admitted carrying out the robbery and are awaiting sentence.

Calderwood said he had helped out in the pub and been paid about £100 a week. Weighing more than 21 stone, he was “probably” an alcoholic and suffered health problems including high blood pressure.

On the night of the robbery he estimated that he had downed about a dozen pints of lager, whisky and alcopops.

“I was very drunk. Plans changed so much that night; the first decision made was to go to the casino. Then someone mentioned the snooker hall and I agreed to go.”

When quizzed about phone calls he had received and text messages he had sent while he was in the Academy, Calder-wood said: “All I know is that the messages and calls were all to do with me putting pressure on Mr Grogan to come down to the snooker hall for a drink.

“That was the main thrust of the messages. I needed the keys to get back into the pub if he wasn’t there. Otherwise I would probably have slept on the beach.”

Recalling the raid, he said: “I was frightened. Having lived in Belfast during The Troubles it brought back a lot of memories from the past.”

The case continues.